


no control

by EasyPeasyPanic



Category: Naruto
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Descent into Madness, Family Drama, Fix-It of Sorts, Genjutsu, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Suicide, Time Loop, Time Travel, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved, Valley of the End
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25475962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EasyPeasyPanic/pseuds/EasyPeasyPanic
Summary: "Would you change it, if you could?" He wonders aloud, looking half-surprised he said it."Change it?" Hashirama echoes brokenly. "Sure, sure I'd change it. I'd change everything."
Relationships: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama, Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 34
Kudos: 213
Collections: fffffffff





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

The trees are screaming, if that makes any sense at all. It's always happened, since he was a boy-- though just a _whispering_ then-- where he'd hear things through the rustling of leaves and the moaning of old wood and the shuffle of grass and the crackling of fallen branches. 

The trees are screaming at him, furious. 

Hashirama responds with silence. His lips press too close together, painfully digging into his teeth until something already broken bleeds. Fresh cooper against his tongue. He stumbles forward, heaving for breath against shattered ribs and aching muscles, but he doesn't give the trees the satisfaction of watching him fall apart against their screaming. 

_I know what I did_ . Hashirama wants to scream, hysterical and furious. _Don't remind me, I know!_ But that would be giving in and he's always been a touch too stubborn to ever just give in to anything. One way or another, Hashirama had always gotten his way, but the world around him doesn't seem to think what he did to get his way this time was right. 

Hashirama agreed with the screaming, even if it was too much on overwrought nerves and fresh grief. It was the heavy thrum of energy against his temples, louder and louder, shaking his skull and teeth, _you did it you did it you did it--_ And he couldn't feel his own heartbeat, couldn't feel anything other than shattered ribs and ringing temples and the weight of Madara's body against his back, because there's a distinction there (somewhere in his head). It isn't Madara on his back, just his husk, just a body. There's no old laughter left in pierced lungs, no beat in a punctured heart, no words left on blood-stained lips. 

Madara is _gone_. Hashirama survives. It isn't fair, and every piece of life around them from the plants to the birds that have fallen silent seem to know it. 

The trees change their tune closer to the entrance of the village. The noise turns to static in his ears, a familiar cry of _brother, brother_ . A warning, more than a comfort. The weight on his back seems to grow heavier than before, more than just dead weight, like someone was trying to drag him down to his knees. Every step is difficult, is more and more draining and painful, and it hurts worse when he sees the gates of their-- _his_ village. His brother is there, by the gates, arms crossed against his chest, relaxed. 

Tobirama meets him a few feet in front, a hand pressed against Hashirama's face with a tenderness he didn't often possess. There's no concern, no fear in wine red eyes, and Hashirama's stomach twists at the confidence in those bright eyes. It's always been like this, he thought numbly, where Tobirama has complete faith in his abilities. Because that was the only place he could rely on his elder brother. Hashirama understood he was fickle sometimes, other times eccentric, always wavering and deciding again bull-headishly, a little too fleeting in thought and too trusting in smile. 

But his brother could rely upon his strength, if not on anything else. Since childhood, Hashirama had never lost a fight, had never been the one that was pinned and helpless. The earth, the dirt against his body, always whispered secrets to him during fights, always held a movement back for Hashirama to get the upper hand, and always protected him. The trees knew the outcome of the fight before it happened, because life didn't lose, and Hashirama did nothing except make _life_ everywhere, sprouting it out of himself like it was just as easy as breathing. No, his brother has never been worried for him, and probably didn't have a single fear in his body when Hashirama left to fight with the Uchiha, because the older Senju had never lost a fight. 

(He should have lost _that_ one.)

Tobirama's cool demeanor shifts into something more furious when he shifts his gaze onto the body sprawled across Hashirama's back, held tightly in his arms. "You _brought it_ back?" He says, as if it was a personal offence against himself, as if Madara was something disgusting and unnecessary. Hashirama gave a tired grunt, shifting his shoulders until he felt the muscles give and something crack, and it sent a pain shooting down his arms. 

"Was I supposed to leave him behind?" Hashirama asks, watching his brother's face, waiting for the inevitable reaction of quiet fury, and somehow he wonders when he raised his brother to be so cold and so unsentimental. 

"Yes." Tobirama replies, eyebrows furrowing. "What was the point of bringing him back?" 

Hashirama scoffs, exhausted. Closer to tears than he would like to admit, and so _so_ tired. So ready to fall apart, except nobody was around to put him back together again, not even his brother. He gently eased the body off his back (not Madara, not anymore, not _Madara_ ), his shoulders sending that same _flaring_ pain down his arms until his fingers trembled as he worked to set the man down. He arranges him carefully too, sitting him up against the desk that was built into the gate, probably an idea of his brother's, and settling cold hands onto a limp thigh, as if he were merely resting there. Hashirama tilts the body's head down, so he doesn't have to meet unclosed black eyes, the muscles in the eyelids refusing to remain down no matter how many times he smooths his hand over the frozen face. 

"Get a pyre ready." Hashirama says, not an order, but a plea. It's the least he can do, he thinks, because he's just turned the world upside down and twisted it into a place he can't recognize right now. The _very minimum_ he can do is make sure that Madara's body is given every Uchiha funeral rite, that he's burned and his ashes spread inside the shrine with his brother. (The Uchiha won't speak against Hashirama, he knows. If he requests the ashes be placed inside the family's shrine, it'll happen.)

His brother's eyebrows raise, his lips twisting into a grimace. The younger opens his mouth to protest, but Hashirama stares him down until he relents into a silent reluctance. "Can you do that for me?" 

Tobirama's gaze is steady and unyielding. "I'll take care of the body." 

The trees are still screaming at him ( _liar liar liar_ ) when he stumbles away. 

**____ **

Hashirama doesn't see smoke that day. He doesn't smell charred flesh or bubbling fat on the breeze that night, and he almost feels foolish for putting too much trust into Tobirama's word. 

_Tomorrow_ , he thinks with fingers pressed deep inside a cut he's sliced into his own side. _He'll burn him tomorrow_ . Hashirama has to pull shards of wood and chipped kunai out of his own body, where his flesh mended together _over_ it, hours before. It's messy work, and he has to stop several times for a drink of liquid courage and dizzying numbness before he can continue his process. 

Bloodied linen lays strewn across elegant flooring. Cherry wood. It's a foreign wood, pinkening hues across dark wood, almost like a fire burning out. Hashirama isn't sure why it makes him _angry_ , but it does. He throws shards of broken metal across the floor, pleased by the way it scratches where it hits, and Hashirama wants to tear it all out. He wants to start everything over from scratch, starting with his own empty house and these _ugly_ floors that he didn't want. He wants to yank apart the houses he built, to burn the gardens he helped create, to let-- let--

Let the ground open up beneath him. To let the roots take hold of the ground, miles deep and spreading, and turn this entire village into the forest it was before. But better, maybe denser. Everything will be just a mess of moss and trees and tall grass that tickles his thighs when he walks through them, and maybe wildflowers too, nothing sophisticated like the gardens that have been planted already. All dandelions and some weeds, maybe a few cornflowers and poppy. And if someone wanders through, they won't come back, because that's just how it is in big dense forests, a person never comes back out, they're consumed by the sunlight and the dirt-tasting water and the vines, and nobody comes out and Hashirama will be in the middle of it all, pretending like Konoha never existed and that he never stabbed Madara through the back. It'll all just be _forestry_ , just like before, just like everything was before Hashirama went and ruined it by clearing it away to add houses and _hopes and dreams_ and all those other nasty things that made no sense in nature. 

He passes out from blood loss a moment after he thinks about such a place, slumping over in a puddle of spilled liquor and crimson bandages and _maybe_ a few tears on his face. 

**____ **

Tobirama offers him a handful of days to grieve, although he doesn't accept it. He isn't sure what he would do with all of that time off. Hashirama doesn't know exactly what he's _supposed_ to grieve, because he doesn't have anything left to be sad about. It isn't a new loss, is it? Hashirama has spent more of his life without Madara than with him, and this isn't the first time they've been seperated by something utterly final. Once as boys that were a touch too hopeful, that didn't have the guts to refuse to be pulled away from each other by their fathers, and then later when Madara decided he wasn't going to stay in Konoha. 

It's an easy routine to fall into after he's managed to repair his body enough that everything comes together. Hashirama doesn't need to mourn what he lost years ago, there's nothing left to pine after. For years, he did paperwork, he went over supply reports, he looked after the training of his shinobi, he went home and read, he tended his bonsai, he drank and slept. And for a time, sometimes Madara interrupted that schedule, sometimes they drank together, sometimes they laughed together, but most of the time, Hashirama lived his life without the Uchiha. 

His life dragged on. 

Nothing is different. 

Hashirama goes to the Tower. He does his paperwork, he goes over supply reports, he looks after the training schedules of the shinobi under his command, he reads the mission reports, he does what he has been doing for three years. He goes home to a wife that doesn't smile at him very often, dimmed by a husband that doesn't show her much affection and brightened by a vile chakra that lingers beneath her skin in the shape of a fox. They eat dinner together, but sleep in seperate rooms, they go on with their lives as best as they can these days. 

He checks the sky every morning to look for smoke. At night, he sits on the engawa and smells the air for the familiar scent of flesh sizzling like pork on a hot plate. Hashirama is disappointed each time, but he also knows that it's never going to happen. His brother is many things, and honesty has always been a virtue of his. He would keep his promise of _taking care of the body_ , but he hadn't said he would burn it like his brother asked, and Hashirama knows it won't happen. 

He doesn't ask what his brother plans on doing with the body. Hashirama knows better by now, he knows to turn a blind eye to what his little brother tends to do because it's the safer, less heartbreaking route. It isn't kind to Madara, he knows that, to let his brother defile his corpse and prevent his funeral rites, but a part of Hashirama is childishly angry over that thought. 

"It wasn't kind of you to leave me." Hashirama mutters to himself, dipping his brush into the warmed ink, shaking his head. "You _left_. You started this. You hurt me first." 

Tobirama looks up at him from his place by a small cabinet, going through files and looking determinedly for something. 

"What did you say, Anija?" 

Hashirama smiles warmly, "Nothing at all." 

**____ **

The barkeep knows his name now. He knows what time he's going to show up, what time he'll leave (which is whenever the man cuts him off), and he knows how much liquor to keep out just for Hashirama. It's a good arrangement, all in all. 

There's a glass already full in front of his usual seat already. The barkeep raises a hand from the otherside of the bar, filling up a ochoko with sake for a giggling young woman that flirts shamelessly with the far oldee man by her side. Affectionate touches on his arm, the easy slide of a smile onto wet lips, the tilt of her head. It makes him nauseous, so Hashirama downs his drink and turns his attention away towards the scroll he's been holding since earlier. Just a mission report, but he's been _trying_ to read it since this morning. So far, he's only made it past the first sentence and the names of the shinobi assigned, but that's all he knows after hours of trying to get through it all. 

"Tough day, Hokage-sama?" The barkeep asks, making him jump when he approaches. Hashirama wonders how far he's strayed that he can't even identify a civilian nearing him, but he pushes the thought down. 

"Please call me Hashirama, we've talked about this." 

"Right," The barkeep says easily. "We have, but it feels disrespectful." His eyes dart down, and he gently presses a hand down against the broader man's arm. "Slow down, I'd hate to have to get your brother here to pick you up again. Not much of a smiler, is he?"

Hashirama smiles, shaking his head. "He never was." But even that doesn't feel honest, because he can remember the faint moments when his brother Tobirama was the brightest of them all, preening at the sight of their younger brothers playing games and throwing mud at each other. "I'll make it home tonight by myself. I'm a shinobi. A little alcohol won't stop me."

The barkeep hums, the sound somehow louder than the _pop_ of the cork. He sets the bottle down beside Hashirama's elbows, leaning closer.

"You've been here nearly every day for weeks." 

"I'm a loyal customer."

"You're a drunk, Hokage-sama. I'm not sure what you're searching for, but you've emptied enough bottles to know it isn't at the end of one."

He laughs. It spills out of him like blood through running water, infecting everything around him. It's far too loud, too deep, it hurts his chest, but he _laughs and laughs_ . How many people are brave enough to call him that? A _drunk_. No, no, Hashirama's father had been a drunk, a cruel one too sometimes. A furious drinker he had been, but Hashirama wasn't anything like that. He wasn't anything like the man that would sacrifice his own sons for the chance of a victory, no matter how fleeting or small.

( _Like you sacrificed Madara for this fleeting village?_ )

"I'm not a drunk." Hashirama wipes his eyes of the tears that have gathered there, catching his breath. His heart pounds painfully against his chest. "And I'm not trying to forget anything. I just like the taste." 

"The taste?" The barkeep rolls his eyes. "Oh sure, this watered down shit is the best around. No, no, you're fighting something. 'M not a shinobi, don't know about your traumas, but I imagine demons are demons. I've had my share. Could tell me about it?"

Hashirama's smile doesn't reach his eyes, he knows that by the saddened stare reflecting off the other man's face. He sets down his glass onto a coaster, his fingers trembling against his will. 

"It's nothing. I like to drink. I like to gamble. I'm fine."

And he _was_ fine. Sure, there were days that he didn't feel very well. Days where the silence between himself and Mito is overwhelming. Days where the secrets between Tobirama and Hashirama are infuriatingly _present_ , but also unspoken. Days where he can't get out of bed. He has more than earned his lonely fate, has more than deserved everything he's getting, and he isn't feeling up to doing anything. He spent a good deal of his time in his futon, curled up, face pressed against the pillow as if he might find the courage to smother himself. 

(He doesn't.)

Besides! He'd managed to drag himself out of the house, right? And compared to the last little while of not being able to, going to this bar was a success.He isn't sure how long that depression had actually dragged on. It had felt like a matter of only days, maybe a week of being unwilling and unable to rise from his bed except to relieve himself, but that doesn't sound right. Especially since Tobirama had been surprised and sad to see him come to the office on a chilly morning, so maybe it had been longer. It hadn't gone well in that time. Occasionally, hunger had struck him hard and consuming until he would stumble into the kitchen with blurry eyes, shoved dried meat from the pantry into his mouth, and then retreated quickly back into his room. Other times, he managed to grasp at just enough energy to boil rice, or to make tea before exhaustion manages to overwhelm him back into a neverending nap. 

But he was doing _well_ now, wasn't he? He was back to work again, back to the gambling houses where he cheated at cards and stole extra chips, and he went _here_ to socialize with the other patrons sometimes. 

"I'm fine." He repeats like a plea for belief. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be fine? I'm-- I'm the Hokage. I have this village. I _founded_ peace." Because those are all of the things he'd been thinking about since childhood, and he'd never deviated from that. 

_People think I'm something like a god. What goes wrong for a god?_

"You don't look fine." 

Hashirama hesitates, "I am fine, though. Do you realize that?" He doesn't mean to raise his voice, but he does accidentally. "I'm living out my dream. There's not a single clan feud in all of Fire Country. Other lands are following suit-- there's peace. A place where kids can grow up and play and throw mud at each other and… and _be_ happy. So happy, it makes you think it's fake. A place for my little brother and my best friend--"

The best friend that he'd killed. The best friend that _left_ . The best friend that came back for blood and flames, tha forced his hand, that made him… _No_ . Nobody made Hashirama do what he did, nobody. He chose to do it, to protect this village. Hundreds of people (mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, kids, infants) depended on Hashirama to keep them safe, to keep the peace safe, to secure the sanctity of this village. And he _did_. He protected this place, at the cost of only one life. Looking at it from that perspective, it was a decent trade off, wasn't it? One life for hundreds. 

Except that one life had been…

Had meant everything to Hashirama. It had always, even from childhood. In every day dream, every moment of weakness, every moment to himself where he thought about his life or his future, Madara was always by his side. Sure, he'd wanted the village for Tobirama, wanted a place to keep him _safe_ and alive, maybe make him happy, but after a while it all came together as _our_ village for _our_ brothers. It was always with Madara by his side, always. 

"I did something I regret." Hashirama admits, not sober enough to close his mouth. He hasn't been sober enough in days, always on the dregs of a hangover and sweating malt liquor as he goes to work and then coming back here at night." 

"Haven't we all?" The other man sighed, running a hand through dark brown hair. "We all have our stuff."

Hashirama lets out a cross between a laugh and a sob. "I don't think you can compare to what I did." And then he clutches at his chest, against the heart that was pounding against his fully healed rib cage, one that wasn't smashed by Madara's gunbai. 

The barkeep's dark eyes are surprisingly thoughtful. The whole conversation feels wrong, almost. Shouldn't he be busier for a man that has a whole slew of patrons in this surprisingly quiet, but busy bar? But Hashirama puts that aside, because who else can he talk to? His brother, who didn't even have the decency to burn the damn body like brother asked of him?

"Would you change it, if you could?" He wonders aloud, looking half-surprised he said it. 

"Change it?" Hashirama echoes brokenly. "Sure, sure I'd change it. I'd change everything." 

"Huh." The other man shrugs, pouring him another drink. "I wouldn't. Changing things always leads to more trouble than you already had, you know? Thousand things could change in a single moment. To each their own, I guess." 

Hashirama sighs. He raises his glass in a silent toast to all their demons, the ones still clinging to their hearts and minds. 

**____ **

Last call was an hour ago. Hashirama had paid his tab and left as swiftly as he could, laying down whatever coin he found in his sleeves (might have been too much or too little). Wandering around mindlessly because he could go to his wife or go to his brother, but neither option seemed very appealing. 

Before, he might have gone to Madara in this state. He would've been a happier man, drinking something less hard and drinking far _less_ in general. Hashirama would have danced and sang his way to the man's house, his face warm and blushing the whole time, and he would have fallen on Madara's lap in a graceless heap of too long limbs until the Uchiha grumbled at him to get off.

But Madara had never actually made him move. Sometimes he would thread his fingers in Hashirama's hair as he spoke of bamboo fireworks and the taste of plum wine and how much he _hated_ dogs. Hashirama hated very few things, but dogs were at the top of the list, and Kami knew he made sure his best friend knew about it. 

There's nobody to lay on tonight. Nobody to weave their fingers through his hair, nobody to do anything with anymore. Hashirama made sure of that. The trees are speaking again, a low sound that guides him through the dark, just a ringing in his ears as if they haven't decided what to tell him yet. The whole forest around him seems to darken, the moon dim in the sky, a flash of red across his gaze that makes him rub at his eyes until it disappears. 

"I need to stop drinking," He says, just as he has said a thousand times before. "Ah! There it is." Hashirama staggers towards the river bed, the sound of the water rushing growing louder and louder. He smiles as his knees hit the rocks so hard he feels the bone smack, the gravel digging in painfully. It's a wild sight, the place that he met his friend, the last place he can remember being completely and unapologetically _happy_ with the Uchiha. 

Hashirama hears the roar of the water, and the screaming of the trees. Everything blurs for a moment, and he grasps stupidly at rocks for balance. 

"I bet those warning stones are still down there." Hashirama mutters to himself, trying to peer down into the dark ripples like he might be able to see them. He leans closer, fingers grasping at the cold water, letting it lick against his palms. It's freezing against hot skin, but he doesn't mind. 

What he does mind is the dark eyes that peer back at him from the water. Hashirama flinched back, muttering a mantra of _need to stop drinking, need to stop--_ before finding the bravery to look again, because he _swore_ he saw something. He'd swear on his late mother's grave, but then again, he's seen many times when his mind was hazy and grief-ridden, and Hashirama blinks down at the water. 

The Senju inches closer, kneeling over, searching blindly for dark eyes that seemed vividly _bright_ against the darkness. The trees beckon him away from the water. They screech with wind, the ground ripples with roots that dig deep, they're warning him, but not begging, beckoning without any desperation. 

For a moment, Hashirama sees a flash of color. Maybe red, maybe purple. He leans too close, trying to search for it, trying to balance himself and keep his vision still and--

He falls in.

* * *

His eyes open. 

His ribs ache, as if he'd been struck by the gunbai again, beaten down by the one person in the world that he'd loved and valued the most in a fight over everything and nothing. For a moment, Hashirama thinks he's in a nightmare. _The_ nightmare. It's all the same as that day when everything turned to shit, when he stopped being able to just _pretend_ everything might be okay. 

The remains of Kurama's vile chakra shifts through the air, unsealed but gone now, hidden away to be found later, to be a puppet with its strings cut inside of his wife. The ground shakes and rocks with the rippling chakra that Hashirama doesn't have anymore to keep using. Exhaustion fills his bones, eating away at his resolve, at his will to _win_ , and Hashirama lets out a bubble of laughter as he comes across the worst day of his life again. 

This dream never gets any easier. He gets up from the ground, his body still reeling from the onslaught of Taijutsu that Madara subjected him to before he hit the ground, the scent of smoke in the air, the aching of his body, the feeling of skin reforming over unclean wounds. The tautness of his flesh as it reforms, the cells closer to wood than flexible flesh, and Hashirama lets out another bubble of laughter. 

His wood clone over there. Madara behind it. And he's right behind his old friend. So close, so _close_ , and his blade is in hand, and he laughs, knowing he's about to give himself away. But it doesn't work like that, does it? Hashirama had done everything from laugh to sob during this nightmare, but it always plays out the same way. He takes his blade, he takes all of the love and trust Madara might still have for him, and he impales the Uchiha with it. Right through the heart too, which might have been poetic if Hashirama had a knack for words, but reading and writing had always been hard for him.

Except Madara whirls around this time. He stares at the wood clone in fury, stabs it quickly, and sets his gaze on Hashirama. His face shifts into exhaustion and anger, like an old wound festering again. 

"You missed your chance." Madara tells him, which is new because usually that doesn't happen. This doesn't happen. Hashirama's eyebrows knit together as he straightens up, gasping for breath around ribs that aren't helping him, that are close to piercing the tender flesh of his lungs.

"Did I?" Hashirama asks, because he isn't sure what's happening, but it's better than anything else he's ever dreamed up. "Sorry."

Madara snorts, loud. He looks breathless too, probably from when Hashirama kicked him in the chest to slow him down, maybe he broke a rib or two. Nothing that matters now. Madara is rotting somewhere in Tobirama's care, most likely taken apart organ by organ in his more scientific (or morbid) moments. His blade is still in hand as he approaches, and Hashirama wonders if this is a better or worse dream than the usual way. 

"Give up, Hashirama?" Madara taunts, trying to rouse a reaction. "Are you tired?"

Hashirama's smile is pained and so _so_ tired. "Yes." He says, because he knows how this will go in the other version. Usually, he wakes up right around the time that he murders Madara, but perhaps he'll wake when the Uchiha kills him. 

Madara visablely hesitates. Hashirama has no idea why. Just a moment ago, he was willing to strike down the wooden clone without mercy, under the guise that it was truly Hashirama. 

"It's alright." Hashirama says softly. "I deserve this." 

_I killed you without pause, didn't I? Do the same to me._

"Hashirama--" Madara says with wide, almost horrified black eyes. He looks like a fish out of water, gaping and confused and unsure. 

The Senju smiles, tight and controlled. He wants to wake up, wants to stop seeing Madara's face because it aches so badly. 

He does the Uchiha a favor. He dives onto his blade, lets it slip open his chest with a single motion, his armour splitting with a nasty metal sound that rings in his ears. Madara shouts, angry and it _hurts hurts hurts_. 

Hashirama dies drowning in his blood, the Uchiha shouting in his ears, and he thinks _it shouldn't hurt so much in a dream._

**____ **

The second time, Hashirama is still thrown for such a loop that he doesn't have time to laugh or speak or do anything. Madara destroys his wood clone, whirls around to find Hashirama behind him, and he kills him without mercy. He has a kunai lodged in his throat and the whirl of the Sharingan staring down at him, and he dies without a single noise except for the trees that scream around him. 

The third time, Hashirama realizes what the _hell_ is going on, and he thinks maybe he should try to change something, but it doesn't happen. He stumbles too slow to his feet, doesn't think of something to say fast enough, and he only manages to dodge one kunai before he has a sword in his belly. He reaches up and touches Madara's face before everything fades to black, smears blood across pale cheekbones, and watches a flicker of regret that fades into resignation and victory. 

This time, _this time,_ Hashirama is faster, forcing a tired body to accomadate everything he wants to do, and he catches Madara's hand before he has a chance to slay his clone. He dispels it himself, and Madara whirls around furious. A snarl already on his lips, but Hashirama grasps his other hand too. 

Desperate pleas fall from his lips, "Stop. Just stop!" He says, because somehow this is real and happening. _Somehow_ . And he can't waste it, he can't keep doing this wrong. "We don't have to fight. Please, _please._ " 

Madara stares at him, "It's a little late for that, isn't it, Hashirama?" He asks, incredulous. He laughs, cruel and sad, shaking his head. He tugs his hands, but Hashirama tightens his grip until it hurts his own fingers. 

"You can be Hokage." He bursts out. "And you can be in charge, even of me, and we can work on your reputation in the village. We can explain it all. That village is ours, it's always been ours, but it isn't if you aren't there."

"Is that what you think this is about?" Madara asks, quiet. His chakra simmers down into a boil, the moment before the steam burns out of a pot, and Hashirama lets him go. He searches his face to see if it softens, to see if he can convince him to come home. "You think I'm angry about fucking--"

Hashirama's voice rises higher and higher, more and more desperate. "I know it hurt you, and I didn't do anything. I never did anything, I just let everything hurt you, and I just watched it happen. I'll fix it. We can fix everything. Let me fix this." 

Madara shakes his head, fighting back his own hurt laughter. He pressed a hand against his face, a bruise against his pale left cheek that he doesn't remember putting there before. 

"You don't understand a damn thing, do you?" Madara asks, still shaking his head. "I don't understand how you do this. I don't understand how you're so blind!"

His voice softens. 

"We are far past fixing, Hashirama. There's nothing left for you to put back together."

And then Hashirama felt that familiar, sharp ache of pain across his body as a kunai went through his side. Something flashes above him, the Sharingan, and he's in a Genjutsu before he can stop it, and he's so caught up in the happy things he's seeing that he doesn't even remember he's dying. Everything fades out from there. 

He tries three more times to talk Madara out of fighting, but they're long past such things, aren't they? Each time, everytime he says anything it's the wrong thing, and nothing makes any sense and Madara slays him each time. Sometimes he puts him under a Genjutsu where everything is alright for a moment, where he makes Hashirama see good things, happy moments. Other times he just makes it quick. Once, Hashirama stepsided out of the blow on instinct and died slowly, and he swore he might have heard a strangled cry before he passed. 

This latest time? 

This time Madara lets him fall into his arms, because he'd managed to stagger forward. Hashirama's blinded by _pain pain pain_ . More than before, because it feels like maybe it dug straight through bone, deep and deep and painful. The sky above him turns dark, maybe his vision fading out, and he's letting out small gasps. Small huffs of air, trying to ease into this, trying to understand, _trying trying trying_. The rest of his words are stuck on his tongue like honey in a dry mouth, but this time had been different. He'd said just about the same thing, useless as always, 

This time, however, Hashirama managed to say _I love you._ Because that was the crux of this whole damn thing, wasn't it? Hashirama had loved him until he wasn't supposed to anymore. He'd loved him until he couldn't because he had always loved his dream of the village a little more, well until he had to live there without Madara in it.

Hashirama had loved him, even with his clan pressuring him and his brother chattering in his ear to _handle this, he's a threat, what was the point of peace if you'll let him take it?_ He'd loved him then, even when he put a sword through his heart, and will always love him even if Hashirama has to die again and again for eternity. It's a better eternity than drinking alone in the village that feels far too empty, and Hashirama relaxes into the pain. It'll be over soon, he realizes, and it'll be fine. They'll do this again, and maybe the next time will be one of the easier ways, when Madara puts him in a Genjutsu. 

He relaxes his limbs, slows his frantic breathing. Warm arms are around him, he realizes. Oh right, Madara caught him as he collapsed. A hand stroking through his hair, tugging at the messy strands of thread-like brown hair. 

A voice. Familiar, lovely voice. 

"--a better world. I'll bring you back, and we can be happy, just wait a little longer, Hashirama."

**____ **

He wakes up. 

His ribs ache. The few remaining trees, the ones not torn by the roots or crushed by the changing landscape or burned to ash, are shouting again. 

_Not working_ , they mock him. _Not working, not working. Not working._

Hashirama falls asleep again. 

* * *

"-nija!"

"Hmm?" Hashirama jostles, his whole body jumping, his muscles tightening. He blinks, the pain in his chest and side and throat still lingering like static electricity over his skin, and he heaves for breath for a moment. 

"Anija?" Tobirama repeats, his eyes narrowing in concern. His hand almost touches his skin, almost lays across his shoulder, almost. But then Tobirama pulls back, his expression pinching up in hesitation that Hashirama has never noticed before, and the guilt eats away at him until he holds onto his brother's hand. He clutches it, offering a weak smile. This is new, Hashirama ponders, but not altogether unwelcome, except he has no idea where he is or what year or what moment. 

He takes a deep breath. 

"I'm sorry." Hashirama laughs, running a thumb over his brother's hand. Calloused, an old thin scar where small chubby hands slipped up with a shuriken when Hashirama wasn't watching him well enough a long time ago. His brother always hurt when Hashirama wasn't watching. "What were we talking about? You know how I get!"

Tobirama huffed, "Oh, I'm aware." He let himself soften up, which his brother felt was as close to a victory as he would ever get. The younger doesn't tug his hand away, lets his brother childishly cling to him. "We were discussing the upcoming election for Hokage?" 

_Oh._ Oh. 

Hashirama's struck by it all right in that moment. Everything that was going to change in that one moment. Everything that would happen, that did happen. Everything. He was back at this moment, where everything fell apart. Hashirama didn't know _how_ or _why_ any of this was going on, or why it kept happening, but it was and he could fix things. 

He was going to fix things. He was going to--

(Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry. Hashirama repeats when he feels his eyes burn and a lump rise in his throat. What did he do to deserve _this_? To deserve this second chance?)

"There won't be an election." He says through the ache in his throat as emotions flood over him.

"Anija, we _just_ went over this--"

"And I said _no_." Hashirama replied evenly as he can manage. "I'm going to appoint Madara as Hokage. That's all I'm going to hear on the matter."

"Anija--!"

Hashirama let go of his brother's hand, rising up so quickly that Tobirama shuffled backwards with a dumb expression on his face. 

"Tobira," He said fondly, because he loves his brother so much, as stubborn and unfairly biased against the Uchiha as he was. "I'm going to name Madara as Hokage. And if there is an election, I'm going to refuse to be on the ballot. I don't want to be the leader." 

_I just want to keep Madara here._

"But Anija--"

"Tobirama." Hashirama said again, as soft and loving as he could when in reality his heart was pounding inside his chest still, _pain pain._ "I said no. Leave me alone about it, please."

He adjusts his hakama, stretching his limbs. He pressed a fond hand against his brother's head, ruffling the white hair that was soft and fluffy, wondering when the last time he did this was? And then he was gone, outside the door, trying to remember exactly how this old compound used to work and not get lost because it had been three years since he last used this building. He stumbles around, almost rounding the corner and shoving inside a storage closet like it was an exit. 

_(Should I just jump from the window? No, better not. Tobirama will throttle me if I ruin the glass.)_

By the time Hashirama makes it outside, he's calm, as if he's shifted back inside his own skin once more and felt in control. His pulse slows, his stomach stops twisting inside his chest, and it doesn't feel like he's walking on air anymore. He's barely felt the sun on his face when Madara appears by his side, and it _hits_ him as if he was struck that this is _happening_. Neither of them are dead, their lives taken by the other, they're here. In this moment together. 

"Hashirama." He says, and the Senju could have fallen to his knees in tears after everything that's happened. He nearly does. 

"Madara." He breathes out, feeling nearly light-headed and so very confused. Thankful, too. Madara takes his place by his side easily, as if there had never been any rift between them at all, because there was none at this point. Not anything serious enough to warrant their deaths. 

Madara takes his hand, pressing a leaf into his palm. There's a hole in it, of course, but it's whole and soft against his hand, and Madara closes his fingers around it. 

"You were eavesdropping." Hashirama murmurs, ignoring the surprise that crosses pale features. Madara's face morphs from surprise to annoyance. 

He bristled fondly, "When did you get so perceptive? And don't call it eavesdropping. I was just in the right place at the right time!" 

"And?" Hashirama replies, feeling far too hopeful.

"Thank you." Madara offers him a small smile, which lightens up his whole face. It softens his features, helps smooth out the stress being held there. 

"No," Hashirama replies, shoving his arm into the Uchiha's to hold him close, leading them deeper into the village. "Thank you." 

**____ **

Hashirama snorts loudly, "You look ridiculous!"

"You look ridiculous." Madara spits back, shoving the large hat up again from where it drifted down his head. It immediately began to droop back down. He yanked it up once more for good measure. "You always look ridiculous." 

" _I'm_ not the one wearing the bright red robes." Hashirama sings, ducking out of the way of the kunai that comes flying at his head. _Not this time, at least_. Madara scowls, glancing at himself in the mirror, running his hands down the robes. They're tailored to him, all red and white, clashing against his pale skin to make him seem bleached out and make his dark hair seem all the blacker. But he's still handsome, Hashirama marvels, with his deep eyes and his elegant features. 

"You look just fine, _Hokage-sama_. So handsome." He doesn't mean to come off mocking, but he does. Because at his core, Hashirama is a bit of a bastard, and he loves to egg the Uchiha on. Madara rolls his eyes, pointing a finger at him threateningly. 

"I will _end_ you, Hashirama." 

And that makes him flinch without meaning too. It sends a shiver down his spine, because after ten deaths (and killing Madara once), Hashirama isn't much for threats, even joking. Still he even out his smile and tries not to let his panic go to his eyes. If Madara noticed, he said nothing about it. Instead he goes back to (secretly) admiring himself in the mirror. 

"You do look handsome." Hashirama repeats helpfully, coming up behind him. Madara shoulders slump in relief, though he rolls his eyes fondly. 

"How would you know? You have no taste. You thought you looked good with that bowl cut." 

"It wasn't a bad haircut! It just needed to be a little longer, not so short." 

"It was a terrible haircut, and all short hair looks wrong, you fucking tree." Madara gestured at his own wild mop under the Hokage's hat, like that proved anything at all about the superiority of long hair. 

Hashirama met his gaze with quiet determination. "Oh, _really_ ?" He challenged, tugging at his own long hair. "I bet I'd look _great_ with short hair." 

"Don't you fucking dare--" Madara tumbles forward, lunging at him but the Senju is quicker than he is when he wants to be. He snatches up a kunai from the desk, and then he has a fistful of his own hair, yanking it hard to keep it stiff. He easily slices the thready hair away until it falls to his chin, and Hashirama grins. 

" _So_ good looking, aren't I?" He throws the hair in the trash bin by the desk. His head feels lighter, and his neck was cooler too. And there's a weight off his shoulders, although not from his hair, because _this_ is different. His hair is different, his life is different. Everything is different, and going so much better. 

"An idiot is what you are! You cut your hair to prove a _point_." 

Hashirama stuck a hand on his hip, "You can call me an idiot all you want. _You're_ the one wearing a giant hat that says fire on it. As if we don't know what country we live in." 

_As if I wasn't the one wearing it a lifetime ago._

"Oh you can go to--"

Hashirama's laughter echoes through the building. 

**____ **

"What happened to your hair?" Tobirama wonders aloud, giving his brother a _look_ above his stare at the book. Hashirama smiled at him, snatching the book away and tossing it to the side. 

"It was time for some change." Hashirama replied dismissively. His brother gave him a nasty stare, trying to dive for his book again, but his brother held him back. "You don't need it. Come on, let's go do something together."

Tobirama blinked stupidly. "What?"

"Let's go do something together. We don't have anything to do today. You can read your book later. Let's go get lunch, and then you can show me your new techniques. I know you have a dozen of them." 

Tobirama's still staring at him like he's some sort of enigma. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion and concentration, and he seems to be systematically taking his elder brother apart in his mind. It made his stomach ache to see how torn apart his brother seemed to be over the thought of his brother spending time with him outside of their usual interactions of living in the same household. Hashirama was on a spree of change, however, and by the Sage's fucking bones, he was going to fix his relationship with his brother and with Madara. 

"Anija." Tobirama inclined his head. "Are you going to pay?" 

"Sure," Hashirama gave him a playful wink. "I'm getting good at counting cards. I have plenty of ryo." 

**____ **

His eyes open. 

His ribs ache, as if he'd been struck by the gunbai again, beaten down by the one person in the world that he'd loved and valued the most in a fight over everything and nothing. He gets up, stumbles forward, fast _fast faster_. 

Don't, Hashirama tells himself, because he knows how this goes. He knows exactly how this will end up, but his body moves on its own. _Stop, stop, I fixed this, please--_ although his limbs don't comply, and he's steadily moving towards Madara's back, like every nightmare he's ever had put together. It's not even heavy, Hashirama notes. The sword isn't heavy, not at all, it's a familiar weight in his hands. It's an easy slide, just a thrust, and the _crunch_ of metal. 

Madara's soft gasp, the last noise he'll ever make, the slide of dark eyes towards him. Angry, betrayed eyes. Furious, a whirl of the Sharingan, and then nothing. Systematic. Death is easy, when one has seen it since childhood, and it doesn't sicken him anymore, not like it did before. It doesn't surprise him when the light fades, the focus there is lost. It doesn't bother him, not at first. It was a clean kill, not honorable, but what shinobi is? It was a clean kill. Right through the heart, but that's when he remembers it was Madara that he killed. It was Madara. It was _Madara_. Again. Again. Again--

His eyes open. Hashirama gasps in a breath, and nothing hurts him. Nothing aches. Nothing hurts except the pound of his heart in his chest, deep and deeper, and it's a thrum in his ears as blood pumps too loud. 

He glances around, prepared for the worst, except everything's different, isn't it? Everything is wrong and right. He's sitting up in a comfortable bed, the sheets tangled around his legs. An empty bottle of sake sprawled on the floor of the messy room. Shirts thrown carelessly across the floor, some clean and some not. An open window for the cool air, the moon shining through. Scrolls and paperwork tossed into corners, scattered around. The discarded Hokage's hat at the foot of the bed. 

He turns slowly, far too hopeful about the soft snoring there. Madara. Relief floods his veins, making the world come back into shape around him. He's in Madara's messy room because the man doesn't understand the organization of anything besides weaponry, and Madara is asleep at his side, and it was just a dream. It was just a bad dream. 

Hashirama smooths a hand over his face, trying to calm himself down. Beside him, he feels a rustle of blankets and a hand on his thigh. Two dark eyes blink up at him sleepily. 

"Why are you up?" Madara asks, his voice hoarse from sleep. He's still laying down, relaxed and at ease by the lack of threats, and he glances around Hashirama's face. 

The Senju offers a grin, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "I had to pee." He replies, grimacing at the way Madara's face darkened in a mixture of annoyance and anger. 

_Wrong, wrong, failure, try again_. Hashirama thinks he might hear from the open window, just a whisper. But he hears nothing else, and he gets distracted by the Uchiha.

"Well don't wake me up to do it!" Madara huffed without any real heat behind his words, burying his face down in the pillows, muttering something unintelligible. 

"I'm sorry." Hashirama whispered loudly, laying back down beside him. This was different too, farther than he'd ever managed to get before, and he hooks his cold legs in between Madara's warm ones, pulling close until his face was smashed into the mess of dark hair. 

Madara's reply was a soft, " _Mhmm_." 

And this was probably the best version of his life, he thinks. 

**____ **

He wakes up. 

There's no bed, no tangled limbs, nothing. 

Hashirama wakes up to his brother calling his name, his eyes fluttering open to take in the inside of the tent he used when on an assignment outside of the Senju compound. A tent he used years ago, before Konoha--

"No." Hashirama whispers in horror, shoving aside his brother's confused hands. He looks around, for Madara, for the familiar mess on the floor that he would need to pick up before his shift on the border patrol, looking for any signs of the house he was just sleeping in. Nothing, nothing, no open window or discarded Hokage's hat. 

"Anija?" His brother said, confused and concerned. Wine red eyes staring at him in a strange mixture of fear and helplessness as he thrashed around his sheets. 

Hashirama runs a hand through long, _long_ brown hair. His stomach flips, grief and rage filling his veins. How did this happen-- _why_ did it happen when everything had been going well? Who was doing this and why would they take him from that? _That_ good world. That good life-- why?

"No!" Hashirama shouts, furiously throwing whatever he can get his hands on, ripping the sheets he was sleeping under. "I fixed it! I was fixing it--"

Outside his tent, he could hear mournful laughter on the wind. 

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

"What did I do?" Hashirama shouts, pacing the forest floor with a hand through long brown hair. "What did I do  _ wrong _ ?"

The trees, for the first time in so many years, are quiet and still. There's nothing in the soft rustling of the leaves, no discernable words on the breeze; just  _ quiet _ . Hashirama whirls around on them, furious and confused. 

"Say  _ something _ !" He pleads, a palm against the trunk of a thick,  _ broad _ oak. The bark is rough against his skin, bordering on painful as he pressed a hand there, letting his chakra simmer on the surface before letting it sink down deep. In return a tug of chakra meets his, like slowly pulling on a razor-thin wire while wearing gloves, so muddled and difficult to grasp that Hashirama could have started screaming again. It wasn't often like this, not even in his childhood when he wasn't properly trained in chakra, the Earth always came naturally to him. The faint undertones of chakra inside plants, roots, the thickest of trees, it all responded to him as easily a sensor trying to feel a person's chakra signature, it was like they were made for each other. Never had he not been able to feel the natural energy before, not like this. It should have been plentiful,  _ should have been.  _ It wasn't now. 

The buzz of energy was faint in his ears. Dulled, like he was buried alive without a way of getting out, and Hashirama released his hold over the living things nearby, biting back a frustrated cry.

He stiffens at the sound of his little brother's voice. 

"Anija?"

Hashirama turns, frowning at the pieces of chipped bark that had torn into his palm, the skin starting to give way to the soft pinkening of rising blood. He watches it, using one hand to dig it out as the flesh starts to mend over the wounds. 

"Yes, Tobira?" He responded quietly. His brother approaches in even strides, although he's wearing a plain hakama, no weaponry in sight nor his usual happuri. His fingers twitch, staying open, showing his palms at his side. Whether this was intentional or not, his brother keeps himself open and unthreatening, most likely still distraught and confused by Hashirama's behavior in the past few days, such as pulling all the Senju forces from the battlefield to retreat back home at the cusp of victory. 

Tobirama examines him in the same way he looks upon the face of one of the corpses he enjoyed studying, as if he were trying to take him apart from skin down deep into his bones. The corpses he believes his brother is unaware of, at  _ this _ time. In the future, he will become more blatant about his less than ideal activities, although he is aware his elder brother will bite his tongue to allow him to do as he pleased. Hashirama was always far too soft-hearted and too eager to please Tobirama, perhaps to make him for his own numerous failings as a brother when given the opportunity. Perhaps Hashirama gives his brother too much rein, but that is a thought for another time. He has far more pressing issues to try and go through, and Tobirama is finding himself being shoved farther down his pecking order with each one. 

"Anija, I've been speaking with the council." Tobirama begins, as if he were announcing some sort of formal reply. "And with Tōka, and we've all agreed that we're deeply concerned for you."

"Oh?" Hashirama replied, perplexed. "Why is that?" 

Tobirama gives him a withering stare, "You know why." He continues, lingering a distance away to gage his reaction before coming closer. "You shredded your tent, you called for retreat. Our crops aren't developing as they usually do. The situation at hand is-- it's difficult. Your behavior is becoming erratic, and you've distanced yourself out into these woods.  _ I'm _ concerned." He admits quietly, pressing a hand against his brother's shoulder tentatively. 

"Tobirama, I'm fine." 

_ I'm going to figure all of this out. You wouldn't be fine either if you had been bounced around the past like a rubber ball.  _

Tobirama's face pinches up, as if he's tasted the sourness of the lie that Hashirama has told. He crosses his arms defensively, closing himself and his emotions off, and Hashirama realizes it's too late to try and pry his feelings back open. 

"I understand you are upset about Uchiha Madara's brother." Tobirama tells him curtly. "But he was not one of us, and we cannot afford you to mourn him. Or whatever this new behavior is."

Hashirama sighs, "Izuna's dead already?" He murmurs, somehow disappointed because what was the point of being here if there was nothing to fix. He feels the forest around him cry at the injustice of it all. There's no words, the forest will not speak to him, but the fury and sadness seems to dampen the air around Hashirama until he can taste the water on his tongue, and the roots beneath the ground recoil in anger. 

Tobirama raises a single eyebrow. 

"Izuna has been dead for weeks now, Anija." He said, circling him like a vulture to a carcass. "What has happened to you? You often act as if you don't have a head on your shoulders, but never like this." 

Hashirama laughs, loud and echoing through the woods. "You're funny, otouto. I never noticed that before." He said fondly, shaking his head. "I'm alright, Tobirama."

"You're not." Tobirama replies steadily. He glances around the forest, their lands.  _ Senju of the Forest _ , Hashirama thinks mildly, and he could have laughed again because here he was, at the worst place, at the worst time in the  _ worst forest _ they claimed as territory. Where the trees did not speak, but he could feel their contempt. 

"Tobirama, I don't want to argue again. Enough, please." 

Tobirama's eyebrows bunched together in confusion. "Again? We haven't argued in many days. Not since I killed him--" His face darkens. "Is this truly about Uchiha Izuna again?" 

" _ Tobirama _ ."

"We have to fight them in the next few days, do you realize that? We have to defend our territory, to defend our clan." Tobirama explains, still giving him that unconvinced steely look. His expression doesn't soften, and Hashirama  _ knows _ what this fight is truly about. He knows how deeply those insecurities are with his brother, that he believed Hashirama would always value his and Madara's bond as greater than his own feelings for his brother. But Tobirama, this jealous and dutiful version of his brother, doesn't understand what he feels for Madara transcends brotherhood. 

He doesn't understand that his place in Hashirama's heart was never threatened, that there was loyalty in blood and value in love, and Tobirama was his only brother. His brother. But Tobirama doesn't understand that yet, and he  _ won't _ until years later, until he sees the meaningful glances and Hashirama's disinterest in his Uzumaki wife. But for now, Tobirama is covetous and volatile in regards to Uchiha Madara himself, and dangerously cold towards the Uchiha clan itself. It's a difficult balance to handle the two, brother and lover, and the lines in the sand are messily drawn and easily crossed. 

"Are you prepared to deal with Uchiha Madara?" Tobirama questions, his tone was icy and biting. "His brother is dead; he will not dance around with you anymore. He  _ will _ kill you without hesitation--"

"Tobira," Hashirama interrupts, fresh irritation surging through his veins. The wind sings a praise for his fresh anger. " _ Don't _ talk to me about Madara's reaction. Be more concerned with keeping your own life, because  _ you _ were the one to slay his brother. He wants  _ your  _ head. Be more worried for yourself, because I will not always be around to protect you." And none of that means to come out of his mouth, but it does. 

It was one of the few blames that Hashirama had always kept off of his brother. One of the old feelings that he kept deep inside, to push aside, because he understands why Tobirama did what he did, even without words. Uchiha Izuna wished for his brother's blood as much as his brother wished for the Uchiha's own. It was only a matter of time until that blood was spilled and a corpse rotted. And for years after that moment, when he watched Madara grow more and more disillusioned and  _ broken _ over Izuna's loss, Hashirama had never spoken the words out loud. Never placed any blame. Kill or be killed, he understood, but Hashirama has no more patience to be spoken to like a petulant child. Over a problem, a rift that his own brother caused. 

Tobirama is furious, because that had been the wrong thing to say. He flounders, his wine red eyes darkening in his hurt anger. He takes a step back, shaking his head. 

"So once again, you take  _ his  _ side?" He spat out. "You still value that mad Uchiha, who stole his own brother's eyes, over your own clan." 

_ Over me _ , but that is left unsaid. 

"I'm  _ not  _ taking sides. I'm not-- I shouldn't have said it like that." Hashirama remains calm, trying to salvage the situation. "He didn't steal Izuna's eyes. That's just rumors-- I know his heart better than that." 

"Rumors that the Uchiha themselves began." Tobirama straightened himself. He shakes his head, turning away. "I did what was best for our family by striking down Izuna, Anija. I did what was responsible. And if Madara comes for my life, if you consent for him to take it, I will die knowing I did what was right for my clan. I do not need your protection." 

"That's not what I meant--" Hashirama stops, running a hand over his face. He's ruining everything already, and he hasn't even seen Madara yet. Always managing to say or do the wrong thing. "You know I won't let anything happen to you." 

Tobirama said nothing. His face gave no reaction. 

"The council is worried for you." He said, turning away. "I was told to inform you." 

"Tobirama, I'm sorry." 

His brother says nothing in response. Hashirama kept his gaze down until he had left. The wind laughed at his misfortune. The ground shook in amusement. The leaves flutter, words on the wind  _ again again.  _

**____ **

He wakes up in a tent. 

Tobirama is right there, still shaking him and demanding he wake up. It's the first call of the morning, and the leader needs to be up first to assess the position of the clan. His brother was by his side, always the early riser. 

"Anija," He said calmly. "You're supposed to be up already. What happened to 'rising with the sun'?" And there's no anger in his face, no betrayal, just mild annoyance at having to wake his lazy brother up. Hashirama offers a weak smile, nodding his head. 

"Tobira," He says gently. "I'm really sorry about what I'm about to do, but I'm  _ really  _ losing my patience. And I don't want to fight with you again." 

Tobirama's eyebrows bunched together in confusion. "Anija? What are you talking about? We haven't argued since two days ago when I--" His face darkens. "Is this about Uchiha Izuna again? You know that--" 

And the beginning of their fight begins again, just as it did before. Except this time, Hashirama never even made it out of the  _ tent  _ before it began. He sighs, tired of this already, and he calls out into the open air.

" _ You _ did this," He says to whatever lingers, whatever is doing this to him. "Of all the times to send me, this one doesn't help. What am I supposed to  _ do _ ?" 

There are no answers. That's fine, absolutely fine. Hashirama will have to get their attention. He lets out a soft sigh, smiling at his confused brother, pulling him out of the way, before he allows the ground to burst open around them, snatching the tent away and ripping it to shreds as some thick plants and heavy roots take hold of the ground, miles deep and spreading, and turning everything around the Senju camp into denser forestry. His chakra sings at the destructive revival, everything growing bigger and stronger, engulfing them, consuming their camp almost. Tobirama is shouting, but Hashirama can't hear anything over the screaming of the trees in his ears and the ringing of his chakra as it embraced the natural energy around him. 

_Idiot, idiot! Enough!_ Shouts the trees, louder and louder until it vibrates through his skull, almost painful, but he carries on. Creating is what Hashirama has always been good at, right? Creating their crops, their structures, their villages, and creating more problems than he can solve. He creates and creates until everything is just a mess of moss and trees and tall grass that will tickle his thighs when he walks through them. All around his camp, all forestry, everything. And if Hashirama has time, he will create wildflowers that are dandelions and weeds and cornflowers and poppy. And if someone wanders through, they won't come back, because that's just how it is in big dense forests, a person never comes back out, they're consumed by the sunlight and the dirt-tasting water and the vines, and nobody will be able to get out, just like Hashirama had thought about before. Just a place without end. Not even his own clan could escape.

(Hashirama would take it all down, if this failed. He could destroy just as easily as he could create, so if this took too long, he would let everybody back out of this gigantic place, where the trees block out the sun and the leaves are the size of a head. It was just a show of strength, of anger. A bluff.)

"Well?" He shouts, ignoring the way his brother is clawing at his sleeves. He can't afford to soften now, not when he's trying to play a bad hand of cards, not when he's bluffing. Tobirama is still speaking, frantic and pulling at him, but Hashirama doesn't look at him because he would give up if he saw the terror on his brother's face. " _ You  _ did this." He accused, because they did, because he was living a good life with Madara and Tobirama in the village, and now he's  _ here _ . For the second time, in this clearing with his old tent and exhausted warriors. 

The world around him turns quiet. A hum, like the beginning of a song, and then nothing. 

Hashirama wakes up. 

* * *

His eyes open to a weight against his chest. Armour. The smell of smoke. Words lingering in the air. That question again. Just like it had been before.  _ Yourself or your brother _ . Hashirama doesn't know what there is to change in this situation either. Before, it had been so quickly done, his life so willing to be taken if only to spare his younger brother, and to heal his drifting friend. Before, there had been no questions to ponder.  _ What went wrong with this moment?  _ What should he do differently? 

"His demand is outrageous." Tobirama says, still prepared to slay the fallen Uchiha. Still seething over old pains and old feelings, never able to let go over the death of his brothers, still clinging desperately to  _ eat or be eaten _ , and Hashirama meets his eyes for a moment. 

( _ Should I slay Tobirama? _ He asks himself after a quiet moment.  _ Is that what I'm supposed to do? _ )

Never, Hashirama decides without hesitation. He wants to punish himself for even letting the thought filter through his mind, even for a single moment. Just as last time, Hashirama could never bring himself to raise a hand against his little brother, the last one alive. His feelings for Tobirama had never changed, even as the world around them shifted and adjusted. Even when his brother hoarded up with cadavers, some donated and some brought in by different  _ darker  _ means, even when his brother took to the shadows to rearrange the Village's running to slowly leech the real power to himself rather than Hashirama, even when he refused to burn Madara's body and did  _ something  _ with it. He loved him through it all, adored him. 

Hashirama can still remember clearly how he would sneak from his own room, only months after Tobirama's birth, to climb into the same bed as his brother. He remembers curling around the small, pale little thing, his arms pulling the bundle of warm blankets closer and closer, to protect him from the world outside the compound. There had never been, nor would there ever be a version of this scenario where Hashirama would relent, where he would accept the terms and slay his own brother, because that would break his heart worse than any other pain. Living without Madara had been difficult, had almost broken him, but a world without Tobirama? His little brother, who's first word has been a butchered version of Hashirama's name, who dedicatedly learned to toddle around to follow after him, who has spent his entire life trying to do his best. It was not possible, Hashirama didn't want to live in a world without him, regardless of if Madara was there with him. 

It occurs to Hashirama that he's taking far too long, and there are eyes burning through him, some dark and some brown, and one pair of wine red that bore into him in a betrayed fear. 

"Anija?" Tobirama prompts, taking a step back, as if his brother was a moment away from deciding he was prepared to gut him alive. Hashirama has been lost in his own mind for far too long, taken up too much time, and it stings him further to think that Tobirama thought so little of him that he would choose his own life over his beloved brother's life. 

_ What choice am I supposed to make this time _ ? Hashirama thinks again, taking a step forward to his brother. He sees Madara's dark eyes widen from the corner of his gaze, and Tobirama's face slips into a jolted neutral as he takes a deep breath. 

Hashirama  _ can't _ kill his brother. He couldn't before, he can't do it now. 

" _ Hashirama _ ." Madara says quietly, a warning somehow. (Does he think I'd raise a hand to my own kin? Is this a test of some sort?) Although he falls silent after that, rising slowly to sit up, to watch with those black eyes that betray nothing of how he feels. 

If Hashirama is to change something, he doesn't know what it is that he should. Only two options, himself or his brother. He had tried to kill himself once before, only to be stopped by his friend. But with all of these time shifts, all of these changes, something was still wrong. But he had tried one choice already, and he refused the other one. Hashirama makes up his mind, pressing a hand onto his brother's shoulder, staring at those betrayed eyes. 

Tobirama doesn't flinch, but his lips straighten into a thin line. ( _Does he think I'm going to kill him? Does he truly think I would choose a peaceful life with Madara over his_ _life_?)

"You're going to do something for me, Tobira." Hashirama instructs, keeping his voice calm. Soothing and low, like he did when the man was just a boy that had nightmares and refused outright coddling. "Alright? I'm going to make the world better for you." 

_ And for Madara.  _

Tobirama frowns, shaking his head. "Don't do what I believe you to do." He warns, but he's silenced by the way Hashirama smiles at him. Tiredly. Knowingly. 

"It'll be alright. You and Madara are both intelligent men, more than I will ever be. I believe the two of you working together could create truly wonderful things." He tells him, which is true, they are both well-versed in the running of clans and the ways of politics, both are well-educated and talented in fighting. Together, there could be no faults in Konohagakure, if only they would work together. "You'll do that for me, won't you? Make a place where you both get a chance to live."

"Anija, don't, please." Tobirama says, just as Hashirama takes a step backwards. Too far from Tobirama, too far from Madara, there will be nobody to stop him. He doesn't need to remove his armour like he did last time, that was all theatrics. An exaggerated way to die; no, this time will be quick and efficient. 

All eyes are upon him still. He holds the familiar weight of the kunai in his palm, adjusting his grip a few times.  _ Always hold it away from your body _ ,  _ you could accidentally strike yourself. _ Except he twists it towards his body this time. Maybe this is what went wrong, maybe that he was meant to have died that day, but Madara's mercy was unpredictable. Even Hashirama had not expected such a bold move, and he'd been more than surprised by it. 

"Hashirama," Madara murmurs, when the kunai inches too close to his throat. "Hashirama,  _ enough _ . I've seen into your heart--"

Hashirama can't make this mistake twice. Maybe  _ he  _ was the problem, not Madara. Maybe he's always been the problem. There's the taste of blood on his lips, cooper and warm where it splatters. Hashirama is many things, but he was a healer first, and what sort of healer didn't know the human body in exact detail? Slicing open the artery in his neck is the fastest way, which is a mercy for himself, and an easy way to prevent anyone from assisting him. An ache, familiar now, as the world fades out of color. It goes from vibrant to reddish purple to greying at the edges, and he hears shouting. 

Tobirama's screaming his name. Pleading with him, though it sounds like it's all under water. Crying, maybe? Poor little brother, he shouldn't have done that in front of him, he should have demanded their cousins restrain Tobirama and take him elsewhere. 

Somebody is touching him, and Hashirama thinks  _ did it work this time, did I fix this, was the I the problem, am I giving them a chance to live better-- _

* * *

His eyes open. 

The flash of metal against metal. Shouting. The ringing of his ears. Hashirama looks down at the sword in his hand, familiar. He looks around, only second away from losing his throat to Madara's blade, looking up to meet the wild gaze of bright red eyes. The familiar, almost fond gaze of a man that's spent his whole life fighting until the activity was the same as a dance, all bright eyes and precise movements. 

Hashirama ducks, meeting his blow with his own weapon. The sparks fly from their combined strength, and he's quick to flip out of the way, ducking low. Where is he now? What time? What battle-- Hashirama doesn't hear anything besides the groans of the dying, the shouting of the living. Madara's eyes on him as he leaps forward, all fast movements and precise blows, but Hashirama spins out of the way. Using his blade, he slashes the rope holding his sealing scroll to his back, removing the weight as he tries to cross the field. He needs to find out what this is-- how many battles had he and Madara fought over the years? How many fights on this exact ground, spilling pointless blood for lands that were rendered unusable by the destruction of their battles? 

Hashirama's eyes search, but he can't keep his gaze away from the Uchiha for very long. Not when Madara moves faster, his blade going for Hashirama's throat. It's a game, he remembers, a vicious one. They've never killed each other, never truthfully tried even when there were plenty of chances. For Hashirama, he was content to fight until his clansmen won a victory or until the Uchiha won, and then he would retreat from his own pointless battle. For Madara, it was the thrill of the fight that often kept him trying to best Hashirama, even if he never planned on taking his life. (Not until later in the years.)

"Hashirama," Madara warns, frustrated, when the Senju ducks and twists away from his blows. Hashirama gives him a tight smile in return, throwing himself under the blade using his knees and then bouncing back up. 

Why does this seem so familiar? Which battle  _ is this _ ? Hashirama tries to track his brother, but all he sees a rush of smoke and-- oh.  _ Oh _ . Oh no, Hashirama bounds forward, caught up in his own horror. It takes a moment to realize his friend is pursuing him, confused and unsure of his motives. 

"Tobirama, don't!" He shouts, his voice lost in the confusion of battle. "Tobirama,  _ don't _ !"

And then it's done before he manages to get close enough to prevent it. In a single moment, he watches his brother's blade glide through the tender flesh beneath Izuna's rib cage, sliding through it without mercy. The Uchiha lets out a wild cry, a touch of blood across his lips. Madara rushes forward, catching the fallen Uchiha in his arms as he collapses, and Hashirama intervenes at that moment. He steps between his brother and Madara, his hand extended desperately. 

"Let me heal him." He pleads, keeping his hands stretched wide and unthreatening. "Let me mend his wounds, please. Madara, I know you don't want your little brother to die.  _ Please _ ." He says, as if he were begging for his own brother's life. Because this is his chance, this is what didn't change before, this is the moment where everything turned sour and the world lost a bit of color, and Hashirama isn't going to negotiate this time. He won't beg for peace, he'll beg for life, and he moves closer. 

_ Please, please don't say a word, Izuna.  _

But Uchiha Izuna regards him in fiery resentent, his dark eyes settling on his headband with the Senju crest. 

"Aniki," Uchiha Izuna hissed out, panting. "Don't.  _ Don't _ . You know this will go. It isn't worth it. If this isn't a trap, then we will owe them a favor,  _ please, Aniki _ ." As if he were begging for his own death, and a flick of conflict spread across Madara's face. His eyes moved from Hashirama to Izuna, wide and unsure. Terrified.

"I don't want anything from you. Let me save your brother's life." Hashirama offers again, moving closer, but the Uchiha brothers both flinched back. He paused, his gaze on the blood bubbling out of Izuna's side, down Madara's trembling fingers. The drying blood across Izuna's teeth as he sneered at Hashirama. 

"Take me home." Uchiha Izuna demands, unrelenting. "Aniki,  _ please _ . Please, don't let him touch me. It isn't worth this. Don't listen to him." Like a spoiled child demanding sweets, he demands his own death, and tired sadness settles in Hashirama's stomach. 

"Madara--" Hashirama tries again. The Uchiha brothers are gone in a rush of thick smoke. 

He closes his eyes, already knowing what was coming. 

**____ **

The smell of smoke. Heavy armour. Shouting, dying, the scent of charred flesh. The screams of the wounded. Madara's blade against his own. 

Hashirama wastes no time. He's already made one (dozen) mistakes too many. He waits, feels the familiar clash of Madara's blade against his own, and he smiles. Shifts his weight backwards onto his other leg, easily ducking out of the way of the Uchiha's advancing swings, and with a single movement, he has Uchiha Madara pinned down with his Mokuton engulfing his limbs. It was one of the few lines that he had never thought to cross, using his technique in such a manner against his closest friend,  _ however _ Hashirama was far past his own emotional limitations, especially considering he might be sent back again if this fails. 

"What the  _ hell _ , Hashirama!" Madara is shouting, flames eating away at the roots tangling across his knees. "What are you doing?" But with every fire, more wood replaced it, easily snuffing out the smoke. 

"You'll be grateful later!" Hashirama calls back cheerfully, bounding across the battlefield. With a wave of his hand, wooden beams held back those that thought to intercept him, sending them all flying out of his way, the ground shaking as the natural energy shifted violently. His brother was in his sight, so close he could see the confliction and eagerness on his face as the opporunity about to present itself. 

Uchiha Izuna begins weaving hand signs, far too familiar. He's seen this technique since childhood. And Tobirama's own hand shifting into a single sign. Water meets flame. Steam billows out around them, but Hashirama is close now, close enough to intervene, although his sight is impaired. 

"Tobirama," He calls out, barking out orders as if he were their father. " _ Do not  _ use the hiraishin!" He cries out, and he feels chakra waver inside the burning mist that envelopes them. He hears his brother's voice, but the message is lost somehow. Everything begins to still. His lungs protest the harsh treatment inside, but soon the steam is gone. 

Hashirama waits, trying to blink away the watering in his eyes. Where was-- oh. Uchiha Izuna appears first, unscathed, standing in confusion. And then his smile twisted across his teeth into a victorious grin, and Hashirama followed his gaze towards. 

Time stops. Hashirama takes a step forward. He can hear things, maybe. Screaming, dying. Wailing. Metal against metal. Armour splitting. But all of those things seem faint, distant almost. He doesn't stumble. He doesn't feel faint. Hashirama nears with certainty in his stride, his whole world shattering in front of his eyes. 

Izuna's Sharingan is on him. Bright red eyes, just like the ones that are staring at him from the ground. Hashirama crouches down slowly, keeping his eyes on the wine red ones that are staring up at him. He gently presses a hand against his brother's face, still feeling like he's underwater, like he's drowning and there's no light to guide him out or any bottom for him to drop to. Tobirama stares back at him, although there's nothing in his eyes, nothing. Hashirama closes his little brother's eyes with his palm, letting his hand linger on the soft skin. He used to put his brother to bed like this, by covering his eyes until Tobirama grew irritated and finally gave in to his brother's insistence. 

And then Hashirama grasps the end of the kunai that was lodged in his little brother's throat, where the armour didn't cover. Deadly accuracy, Hashirama thinks mildly, glancing back at Izuna for a moment. The Uchiha was frozen in place, his brother coming to his side. Hashirama takes his attention away, back to his brother. He pulls the blade out with a squelch that almost shatters him, but he puts it aside. Hashirama gently tucks the rabbit fur collar-- the only thing that their mother left to any of her family, and only to Tobirama-- around his throat until the blood was covered up. 

It's still quiet. Faintly, he might hear somebody speaking. Or perhaps it's the trees that are wailing, but he can't think. 

"I distracted you." Hashirama says gently, taking off his brother's happuri. The man loathes--  _ loathed _ being forced to sleep in it because it dug into his skin when he rolled. "I distracted you, and he--" 

He killed him. One moment that went horribly wrong. Hashirama's little brother is dead. He sits back onto his heels, contemplating his decision in this moment. His brother was dead. Tobirama had been killed, due to his own brother's foolish mistake. It sounded simple like that. It sounded different, it came to him differently. His brother was dead. And Hashirama was falling apart at the seams-- the world around him was turning to dust, the air hurt his lungs. The sounds, the life, everything was gone. Vibrancy faded. It felt as if Hashirama had been torn to shreds with a blunted knife, as if every breath and every heartbeat had been torn from his body, as if he was rotting somehow beside his brother. The world turned an ugly shade of grey, almost. There were no sides, no black and white. No Uchiha and Senju. Nothing else mattered, not ancient feuds and unpaid debts and the threat of starving out his clan with a loss. Everything was faded and old and uninteresting, and Hashirama had little desire to do anything else besides sit here beside his brother and pretend he was sleeping. 

"Hashirama." He hears, somehow, through the rush of blood through his temples from a heart that shouldn't be beating. He glances up, sees Madara standing there, one arm pushing his brother backwards. He looks afraid, almost, and acts as a shield between the Uchiha and Hashirama. For a moment, he wonders why he's guarding his little brother like a treasure about to be stolen away. 

And then it strikes him hard, like a blow to the chest.  _ I want to kill Uchiha Izuna _ , because that's the only thing that Hashirama can think to do in this situation. He raises a hand to his face, surprised to find the hot tears streaming down his cheeks. He wants to kill the Uchiha, just for the victory in his gait, the smugness in his gaze. He wants to tear his throat out as a funeral gift for Tobirama. The itch to  _ destroy _ everything sank deep into his bones, decaying him and bothering every part of him until his fists clenched. 

_ Do it, do it, do it _ . The trees whispered to him, giddy for fresh (deserving) blood. They grew louder and louder, like the howling of the wind, and Hashirama kept the sound ringing in his ears as he rose up away from his brother's side. 

He steps forward. Madara doesn't  _ hesitate  _ to shove Izuna backwards, hunching forward protectively.  _ I want to kill Uchiha Izuna _ . He thinks again, but Hashirama frowns when he looks upon Madara's face because then he thinks  _ I still love him _ . Which is painful in itself and far too honest, and Hashirama stares at the determination and horror and fear in Sharingan eyes. Fully prepared to protect Izuna, to die for him. To  _ kill _ for him. Even if it means he has to kill Hashirama, but where is the surprise in that? Hashirama had been more than willing to stab Madara to make sure his brother could live happily in the Village. 

Hashirama unsheathed his blade. Madara tensed. Izuna took a step back.  _ I want to kill Uchiha Izuna, but I love his brother _ . He thinks again, as his chest aches with this fresh grief. There's a hole in his chest, a gaping disgusting wound in crushed ribs where his heart should be because Tobirama is dead. Hashirama wants to scream as loud as he could about that, but he stays quiet. Watches Madara. 

Is this what he felt when he lost Izuna? Is this the grief that drove him to madness? Hashirama could have  _ laughed _ , because now he understood this gaping wound, this pain like he's lost a limb. He couldn't let this injustice stand, he couldn't leave Izuna alive after  _ this _ . He tore Hashirama's heart out of his chest, all teeth and claws digging out the flesh inside that belonged to his own living baby brother. He wanted Izuna's blood in a sort of rage he hasn't felt since Kawarama died. But at the same time, he still loved Madara.

He loved Madara, still, somehow. After all these different tries, after all these resets, all these changed moments. Even at this very moment, when his brother killed his brother. He doesn't want to  _ hurt  _ Madara in the same way that he's feeling. It's a selfless pain, deep inside his chest, eating away at his lungs. It hurts to betray Tobirama like this, to hesitate in slaying Izuna, but he doesn't want  _ anyone  _ to have to feel the agony he's in right now. Especially not someone he loves, how could he rip out Madara's heart as--

Oh.  _ Oh _ . 

_ Your brother's life or your own _ . Madara's small mercy. He could have demanded Tobirama's life without that humbling choice, he could have went straight after his little brother's head at the moments that Hashirama wasn't always around. Madara did not. He gave Hashirama a  _ choice.  _ Your brother's life or your own. A kindness, a choice. An understanding that hurting someone you love is difficult, almost impossible. 

It's like that now, in a way. Hashirama can't handle this. He can't handle a life with Izuna, knowing he's disappointed his brother by letting him live. But he can't handle knowing he  _ hurt _ Madara by killing his younger brother. This sort of pain shouldn't have to be felt, let alone shared. 

_ His brother's life or my own?  _

Hashirama sighs, saying a quiet apology to his brother. 

He dives down onto his own blade.  __

**____ **

He tries again. 

He seperates Tobirama and Izuna. He shouts and he screams. He begs and pleads, he tries to keep them apart long enough to appeal to Madara. And for a moment, just a second, he thinks it might work. 

And then Tobirama sees his chance, he takes the distraction, he goes after Izuna's throat. Hashirama scrambles to stop him, just as surprised as everyone else. 

It fails. 

Hashirama closes his eyes. 

**____ **

Again. He fails again. 

He manages to keep his brother detained, somehow. Manages to calm him down and keep him close enough to handle him quickly. He appeals to Madara once more. 

Hashirama forgets how  _ determined _ and spiteful Uchiha Izuna manages to be as he protests and claws his opinions back into his brother's thoughts. 

"You would  _ trust  _ them?" Uchiha Izuna asks, horrified. Furious. Simmering. A pot about to boil. "Aniki, don't listen to a single word-- would you put them above me?"

Madara would not. 

He declines. 

Hashirama closes his eyes. 

**____ **

And the three times after that all fail, again and again and again.  _ Again again again _ , the trees shriek at the top of their lungs, until Hashirama's teeth clench hard and his skull rattles beneath his skin, and everything  _ hurts _ . 

"I'm  _ trying _ !" He shouts back. "Don't you see that I'm trying?" 

There are a dozen eyes on him as he shouts. Because he has underestimated Madara's own stubbornness, his brother's own spitefulness, and Izuna's unyielding influence over everything. Hashirama glares across the field, ignoring the cautious curiousity as he simmers in his own frustration at himself, at  _ them _ . 

"I'm trying! I just want--" He cuts himself off. What does he want? Hashirama has never really thought about that before, has he? He wants the other life back, with Tobirama and Madara, where everything seemed like it would be alright. He wants that future back, because Hashirama got to be happy. Where Madara and Tobirama were beginning to be  _ happy _ . Maybe he's a sappy, romantic mess, but he's desperate and tired. Why should he have to fix this? Why should he have to put up with Tobirama's miserable inability to release his negativity, or Madara's indecisiveness, or Izuna's own suspicion? It's like nothing that he does will ever be enough. Hashirama has no way of being able to convince anyone of anything, and it's so  _ frustrating _ . It makes him want to scream until he breaks down in tears. Why couldn't everyone just get  _ along _ ? Why couldn't he change their minds. 

Hashirama sighs, closing his eyes, waiting for it to finally take him. 

* * *

He opens his eyes. 

The flash of metal against metal. Shouting. The ringing of his ears. Hashirama looks down at the sword in his hand, familiar. He looks around, only a few moments before Madara charges him. He shifts his weight, throws the blade down, dances his way out of the direction of the Uchiha's sword. It's a dangerous move, to try to avoid rather than parry, but Hashirama isn't afraid of dying anymore. 

He doesn't pick up his weapon. Instead he strips off his headband, tossing it at his brother's feet when Tobirama neared. Confusion crossed his features, and even Madara paused in his attack. 

"Hashirama…?"

The Senju ignored them, stripping off of his armour. He wiggles out of the top without untying it, because that would require help he didn't want to ask for. Around them, he can hear everything dying down, the fighting slowing down as they watch their leaders stare at him, but Hashirama pays them no mind. He throws the armour down with a heavy  _ thump _ , right onto a patch of unscathed grass, just to prove a point. 

"I'm done." He announced, as loud as he could manage. It echoes across the quieted battlefield. 

"Anija…?" Tobirama tries to touch him, but Hashirama has always been a touch quicker before he began to use his new techniques. Madara keeps his gaze on him, not moving. He seemed stricken, almost. 

"I'm done fighting." Hashirama repeats, waving his hand in the air in an act of flippancy. "If you all want to keep fighting, you can. But I'm not going to." He turns on his heel, lumbering off towards the forest. 

Madara stalked after him, shouting. "What the hell are you doing, Hashirama?" He questioned, his footsteps growing closer and closer. Hashirama refused to turn around, only walked faster as he hurried off that battlefield. 

"I'm done." Hashirama called back plainly. He doesn't look back. "Because this isn't going to ever end. We're going to fight and fight, until one of our brothers dies. And then we'll fight and fight again, until one of us dies. I'm not going to condone it anymore. Go fight if you want. I'm sure my brother still is." 

Madara falls silent after that, following after him. Hashirama doesn't stop, weaving in between the trees and past the old trails that weren't any help, because he knew this path well enough without them. He ducked beneath a low hanging branch, and finally slowed down when he felt the sunlight warm his cheeks into a comfortable heat. His eyes searched the ground, all shiny stones and water-darked muddy sand and steep inclines that made approaching the calm river dangerous. But the air smells of fresh instead of the cooper of blood, and the water is clear enough that it bounces back a pretty blue just like the sky, and Hashirama doesn't mind the chance of drowning. 

He picks a large stone that angles downwards, almost directly facing the water. It's a spot he wouldn't have picked as a child, because Hashirama had always worried about falling in the river and breathing in the water by himself. Before, he would have chosen a safer spot, farther away from the water. He sits down, keeping himself upright, staring down at the river. For a second, he thinks he sees a flash of color in the water, as if the light was hitting at a strange angle. His shoulders slump as he hears Madara approach cautiously, and he motions at a spot beside him for the Uchiha to sit. 

"I don't know  _ what _ you think you're doing, you fucking idiot--"

Hashirama regards him tiredly, "You aren't Madara, are you?" He questions, watching the way that the Uchiha falters. Every detail of him is immaculate, perfect. The slight tilt of the Uchiha's nose when he broke it sometime during his childhood. The light thin scar above his eyebrow that was often covered up by his thick black hair. The mantle he wore, the sword at his side, the way he held himself and his gait. His voice, everything was right. But also none of it. 

Madara doesn't seem to want to give up this charade. His eyebrows furrowed. "What the hell are you talking about? Of course, I'm--" 

"Is this the afterlife? Or a Genjutsu?" Hashirama continues on, shaking his head. The sun is burning his cheeks now, too bright. There's a whispering in his ears that he can't quite understand. "Don't lie to me. You aren't  _ him _ , are you?"

Madara frowns, his lips twisting past displeasure into a grimace. 

"I'm real, almost." Madara admits with a shrug. He threw himself down so he was sitting by Hashirama's side, his hair tickling Hashirama's knee. "A part of my conciousness set inside this Genjutsu. I'm more of a copy." 

"A genjutsu, huh." Hashirama curled in on himself, a hand in his hair. "Can I ask a few questions or…?"

Madara regards him in the same tired frustration. He threw his hand up in his usual sign of annoyance, but it was a consent. 

"Why this kind of Genjutsu? What is this?" Because those are safer questions, because asking  _ why _ he did this or  _ how  _ he did it would probably not be answered, or would make Madara angry at his dumb questions that he knew shouldn't be asked.

"I can't tell you." Madara replied, shaking his head. "But I didn't mean for this to happen, Hashirama. I meant to-- to give you a happy dream. It was never my intention to do  _ this  _ to you." 

Hashirama lets that settle in his mind. It warmed him, made his heart soar a little to think that all of this mess hadn't been on purpose. That Madara hadn't meant to do any of this. 

"The best way to cast a Genjutsu is to let the victim's mind-- your mind do most of the work. To create the fantasy." Madara explains, crossing his arms. Hashirama understands Genjutsu well enough to already know all of this, his brother Kawarama and his cousin Tōka had been experts in that type of technique. Although one like this, trapped in a loop, was one he hadn't heard much about. 

"And…?" Hashirama prompts. 

Madara's stare is unimpressed. "Your so fucking bull-headed and self-sabotaging." He spits out. "That you messed it all up. Your greatest desire was to fix everything. And you tried and you tried, but it all failed because there was no conceivable repair."

"I came  _ close _ ."

Madara inclined his head, "Did you? You made yourself happy for a while, but it fell apart. Because a fantasy can only go so far when your own mind is unwilling to accept anything less than perfection. You kept thinking you could make it a little better. A little bit better. You were so desperate to make me happy, you ruined things for yourself." 

Hashirama hunches into himself more, letting that settle in his mind. That had been true, hadn't it? Even at his happiest, even at the moment where he thought he was happiest with Madara, there had always been some guilt harbored deep inside his chest. Guilt for not being able to keep Izuna alive foe Madara, for letting his relationship with Tobirama slowly rot, for all the things that had happened that he felt he couldn't prevent. It was miserable, but it shouldn't have-- have affected him this much. 

"Your perception grew skewed. Your scenarios grew darker and more challenging to fix. Things shifted, changed. You couldn't change what happened on the battlefield, so you tried to kill yourself. That didn't settle right in your mind, you wanted to do better. Fix it all. So you went back further, tried to save Izuna for me. If I was happy, you would be happy. It would all come together, wouldn't it?" Madara continued, laying his head against Hashirama's thigh as he spoke. His eyes remained on the river as the water seemed to grow more and more wild and splashed against the rocks harsher. 

"I did save Izuna." Hashirama protests. "I did save him. But he wouldn't listen to anything I had to say. And Tobirama wouldn't stop being difficult."

"Your own bias. You didn't have anything to draw from to create any fantasies that would go along with the route you chose. As far as you knew when my brother was alive, he was difficult and didn't want peace. You couldn't imagine a world where he wasn't like that, because you didn't know enough about him to know what his reaction would be." 

"So I could never convince him to make peace. It was an impossible task." 

"Yes." Madara sighed. "Just like you couldn't completely reconcile with Tobirama." 

"I perceived him as being difficult outside of all of this, so in this dream, that's all he ever was in my dreams. Without a chance to change because  _ I  _ couldn't imagine how he would act if we did completely get along." Hashirama let out a soft breath. "I did  _ this  _ to myself. I did all of this to myself."

"You created your own nightmare. An inescapable loop of failure."

Hashirama looks up from between his hands, letting the sunlight slip through his fingers. He looked at Madara, at all the small details, all the little things. He remembers how he looked pulled apart, he remembers how he looked when he died. He remembers the betrayal in hauntingly beautiful dark eyes. 

Hashirama frowns, "But I-- I killed you." He protested suddenly, shaking his head. "I killed you. How did you put my under a-- I killed you." 

"Did you?" Madara asked gently. "Did you kill me?" 

"I did. I never stopped mourning you. I broke apart again and again. I loved you." Hashirama's voice choked off as his throat became painful and stiff. "I killed you, and I loved you. And I'm sorry. I spent so long mourning you, I couldn't have made all of that up in my head. Why would I do that?"

Madara's smile is tight. 

"Maybe your own guilt was so horrible you wanted to punish yourself. Or maybe I trapped you in the Genjutsu afterwards, let you boil in what you did. But either way, you're out of the way for now." 

"But I killed you." 

"Or you didn't. Perhaps you never made it out of that valley. Maybe you never killed me, maybe it was a part of my Genjutsu. How would a deadman manage to do all this?"

Hashirama hesitates, "I don't-- I don't know." He whispers, running a hand through his hair, tugging at it. "It felt real. Killing you felt real." 

"And maybe you did." Madara conceded. "Or maybe you didn't. It doesn't matter now, does it?" He sighs, shaking his head. "We've gone over this again and again, it's my own nightmare too, an endless loop of you figuring out you're under a Genjutsu."

"I've figured it out before?" Hashirama rubs at his wet cheeks, trying not to shatter apart because none of this makes sense. None of it made any sort of sense, everything was fabricated. Everything in his head wasn't true, none of this was real. But what was real-- what was real and what was made in his head and what did Madara influence in his head. 

The water in the river was darker now. Murkier, just a dirty brown as it rushed loudly. So loud. It was a heavy noise, like chakra being pounded against his temple, louder and louder, shaking his teeth until they clenched. The trees were screaming around him,  _ stop it stop it stop it _ and  _ you did it you did it-- real. Real! Real! Real! _ But even this had to be fake, his own imagination, his own anguish and grief turning his life into a nightmare. Pain and pain and pain. 

Madara hums, somehow louder than the screaming of the world around him. "This is the third time you've figured it out. And each time I influence you into forgetting and start over. It's better to keep you occupied while I handle things." He smiles, just a twitch of his lips. "It's better this way. I'm doing this for you. And me. And Izuna. Even your bastard of a brother. I'm going to make a better world, Hashirama, but I couldn't have you interfering."

"Wait." Hashirama said, shaking his head. His eyes were wide, his pupils blown. He shook his head again and again. "How do I know any of this is real? How do I-- I  _ killed  _ you."

Madara shrugs, "You don't know. Maybe I'm lying. Maybe you drowned in the Naka river, and this is your divine punishment. Or maybe it's all in your head, and I'm the only way of justifying your madness. It always was easier to blame things on me. Who knows? Maybe you'll figure it out." 

Hashirama's eyes close. 

* * *

He wakes up. 


End file.
